Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/599

 Popular Science Monthly

��583

��Day Signals

����N.LS;orm

��S.E.Sion

��S.W.Storm

��N.W Storm

��Hurricane or whole gale

��Night Signals

��Storm signals of U. S. Weather Bureau. The night signals shown above are displayed only on the Great Lakes

��expected direction of the wind at the beginning of the approaching storm.

In the year 1909 an international com- mission met in London to consider the introduction of a uniform system of storm signals for all countries. The system eventually recommended consists of com- binations of cones, as shown in the annexed figure; but it will probably be many years before the international signals come into general use.

At the present time some thirty or forty systems of daytime storm signals are in use in different parts of the world. The most elaborate of these are found in the Far East, and serve to indicate, not merely the fact that a storm threatens the place where a signal is dis- played, but the ex- istence of a typhoon anywhere in the neighboring seas, its location, and the di- rection in which it is moving. All this is accomplished by means of solid sym- bols (cones, balls, diamonds and squares) displayed at both ends of a yard arm and at the summit of a mast, in a conspicuous .loca- tion on the coast.

��T

���A sterilizer for cleaning and thoroughly disinfecting the clothes of French soldiers when they return from the trenches

��A Huge Clothing Sterilizer on Wheels for the Armies

HE barber's eternal question, "Hot towel, sir?" is answered in a novel way in France just now. A giant sterilizer on wheels takes care of the towels and other articles of the men who return from the fighting front and puts them through a steam bath which both cleans and disinfects them. Thus the spread of disease is prevented.

However, France does not keep her sterilizers at home. She sends them di- rectly back of the first-line trenches in villages where the troops are permitted to bathe occasionally.

From the photo- graph it will be seen that the larger tank of the two is the steam chamber, while the smaller tank contains water. The water is heated by gasoline or kero- sene. The steriliz- ing chamber is large enough to accommo- date nearly a hun- dred soldiers' suits. It takes about an hour to thoroughly clean a uniform, but proportionately less for towels.

�� �